The polar bear was right in a tent viciously attacking them all. Michael was a hero and shot it dead...

An explorer has described how he wrestled with the giant polar bear that mauled teenage Eton schoolboy Horatio Chapple to death, moments after its terrifying attack.

Expedition guide Michael Reid, 29, was woken up by the screams of three boys who were attacked in their tent among a camp set up on a remote glacier near the Arctic Circle.

‘Michael ran over to help and the bear turned on him,’ the guide’s father, Peter Reid said last night.

‘He tried to distract the bear, only for it to slash out with its paws and bite his face and neck.’

Seconds earlier the hungry bear had ripped open the tent where three friends lay sleeping. It killed 17-year-old Horatio, an aspiring medical student, instantly.

In an email to his parents, containing the only first-hand account of the tragedy that has emerged so far, Michael – known as Spike – described Horatio as ‘one of the best people in the group’.

Sleeping next to Horatio, whose grandfather was the former head of the British Army, was 16-year-old Patrick Flinders. He punched the bear on the nose and used his rifle ‘like a baseball bat’ because he was unable to fire a shot.

As the boy fought desperately for his life, the 7ft, 40-stone animal swiped at his eye, narrowly missing it.

But Patrick was left with deep claw marks on his cheek and he, like all the survivors, had plastic surgery yesterday.

Hero: Adventurer Michael Reid, who works in London, with his sisters Juliet and Rosalind

Happy family: Michael Reid with, from left his sisters Rosalind and Juliet, father Peter and mother Rosemary

The bear also attacked the third boy, 17-year-old Scott Bennell-Smith, who suffered head injuries.

It was at this point that Michael and fellow guide Andy Ruck, 27, heard the boys screaming and came running to help.

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Although
details of the attack remain sketchy, it appears their bravery, which
left them with the worst injuries, saved the two boys’ lives.

After mauling Michael, the bear turned on Mr Ruck. It is unclear whether he was carrying a gun or tried to fire a shot.

Survivors: Andy Ruck, 27, was a team leader and was injured too and still in hospital

Either way, said Mr Reid, the distraction ‘gave Michael the chance to run back to their tent and grab the gun’.

He added that his son was adept with a rifle having learned to shoot at his university’s Officer Training Corps.

‘He shot it dead through the head – we don’t know any more than that,’ Mr Reid said. ‘We have been told everyone was saying Michael was a hero.’ Police, who arrived by helicopter, found the group in shock with the bloody carcass of the bear still lying among the tents, the dead and the injured.

Both Patrick and Scott suffered head injuries and were recovering in hospital yesterday. All four injured survivors are due to be flown back to Britain today.

Echoing the concerns of all their families, Patrick’s father Terry said he now fears for his son’s mental health.

‘When I first spoke to Patrick, hours after the attack, he was still dazed and repeatedly murmured “Polar bear, polar bear”,’ Mr Flinders said.

‘The only other words I really picked
up were about his eye. I think he feared he had been blinded. I imagine
that the horror of seeing his friend savaged and killed by a polar bear
just inches away will play through his mind time and time again.’

Mr
Flinders, from Jersey, spoke to his son yesterday lunchtime after he’d
had surgery. ‘He was lying on his hospital bed in a recovery room and
his bed was next to Scott’s.

‘I asked Patrick how Scott was doing and he called out to Scott, who gave a thumbs up.

‘I’m
pleased the two of them are still together. Hopefully they will be able
to talk things through and share their fears and memories with each
other.

Survivor: 16-year-old Patrick Flinders tried to punch the bear on the nose to try and stop it from attacking them

‘I’m now desperate for him to get home. It will be an emotional reunion and certainly not the one we were expecting.

'My 11-year-old daughter Felicity and I
had planned to dress up as polar bears and surprise him when he
returned. It’s the sort of childish, funny thing we like to do but we
certainly won’t be doing that now.’

The
victims were part of a larger group of 80 that landed last month on
Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of
Svalbard, at the start of a five-week adventure. The island, which is
more than 1,200 miles north of Oslo, is home to 2,000 people and more
than 3,000 polar bears.

The group from the British Schools
Exploring Society (BSES) based themselves in the island’s only town of
Longyearbyen and spent a few days acclimatising and training with
Michael and Andy, both experienced adventurers.

Horatio Chapple, left, has been described as 'strong, fearless and kind'
by his family. Right, his father David Chapple. His family said he had
been excited about becoming a doctor and praised his sense of humour

The students were shown how to shoot
bears in the event of an emergency and how to set alarms called
‘snublebluss’ around the tents – a network of trip wires attached to
shotgun shells that go off if a bear ventures into a camp. On Thursday
night, the group set up camp on barren ground on the Hampus mountain
after a 25-mile trek from Longyearbyen. They were asleep at about 7.30am
the next day when the male bear attacked.

The
vice governor of Svalbard said: ‘There was a trip wire in place around
the camp but what happened to it in this case is still under
investigation. When the trip wire is triggered it is supposed to emit a
bright light and a bang.’

Battle with the bear: An aerial view of the camp shows the four tents with the dead polar bear in the middle of the site having been killed by the group during the struggle

He
added: ‘BSES has been doing annual trips in Svalbard for many years and
we have always emphasised to them how to protect individuals from
attacks of this nature.’

A TV wildlife film-maker who spent months on Svalbard described the way the students had set up camp as ‘highly perilous’.

John
Downer, who made the award-winning Polar Bears: Spy On The Ice shown on
BBC1 last December, said: ‘It is terrifying to think of them staying in
a tent out there.

‘Polar
bears are a most dangerous predator – particularly in the summer when
the sheet ice has melted and the seals have disappeared.

Tragic: The group of young explorers from the British Schools Exploring Society aged between 16 and 25 pose for a photograph days before the attack

‘The bears left on Svalbard become
scavengers, forced to eat kelp, birds’ eggs and edible flotsam,
including the occasional beached whale carcass. The bear that attacked
the students – perhaps a young one and certainly undernourished – would
have trundled to the camp to investigate the visitors and probably
smelled food.’

The doctor who treated the four
injured survivors at a hospital in Tromso described their injuries as
extremely serious. ‘They are from bites and claw marks mostly from the
neck up,’ said Dr Finn Krohn.

‘My
colleague had rushed to the scene by helicopter and he said it was
dramatic and chaotic, with the boy and the polar bear lying dead close
to each other.’

Jane Owen, the British Ambassador to Norway, who visited the survivors’ bedsides said yesterday: ‘They are in remarkably good spirits. Clearly it was a vicious attack and very frightening. They were very brave.

‘They know that Horatio was lost and they’re very sad about that.’

Jon Mathisen, director of emergency medicine, said some of the injured will need several more operations and revealed: ‘Some of them have been able to communicate writing notes, and nurses are reading them down the telephone.’

Attack: One of the victims of the polar bear attack is carried from a helicopter in Longyearbyen yesterday

The eight unharmed survivors – six girls and two boys aged between 16 and 20 – were questioned individually at a police station in Longyearbyen yesterday.

Later, asked how she was feeling, one female member of the party, who looked pale and exhausted, said simply: ‘We’ve been through a lot.’

A week ago the group had been thrilled to see their first polar bear, describing on the expedition blog how they had seen it floating across a fjord on top of some ice.

The entry said the sight had left everyone in ‘good spirits’.

The posting added: ‘Everyone dreamed of polar bears that night.’

‘You’re still the best, Horatio’

'Fearless': Horatio Chapple in a photograph supplied by his family

By MAIL ON SUNDAY REPORTER

The family of Horatio Chapple last night paid tribute to a ‘strong, fearless and kind’ boy who had dreamed of following in his parents’ footsteps and becoming a doctor.

In a statement, they said: ‘Horatio was so excited about his plans to become a doctor, strong, fearless and kind with an amazing sense of humour and ability to laugh at himself.

‘He was on the cusp of adulthood and had a clear vision of where his life was going.’

They said that Horatio had 'many friends who admired his enthusiasm for life'.

'Horatio enjoyed playing water polo and rugby and was the head of sport in his house at Eton. He played the trumpet and was in the jazz band at school,' his parents told the Sunday Times.

'When on a family trek in Nepal in 2009, Horatio carried his four-year-old cousin up the steep slopes without a word of complaint, despite recovering from a dislocated shoulder.

'Horatio was determined to read medicine and was very keen to find a cure for type one diabetes, from which his youngest brother suffers.'

Horatio’s parents, David Chapple, 49, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Salisbury NHS Foundation, and Olivia, a doctor at the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals, were not at the family’s farmhouse home in Bishopstone, near Salisbury last night.

Rachel Bardham, Horatio’s aunt, told The Mail on Sunday that they had left for Norway.

She said: ‘I believe that’s what they want to do. They feel it is right they should be there.’

It is understood Horatio’s brothers - Titus, 15, and Magnus, 13 - were being comforted by other family members.

Last night hundreds of people had posted tributes to the teenager who had been inspired to take part in the trip by his grandfather, Field Marshal Sir John Lyon Chapple, the former head of the British Army and an ex-president of the British Schools Exploring Society (BSES).

His brother Magnus wrote: ‘You were the best brother and still are. I love you and rest in peace.’

Mr Cunliffe’s tribute referred to the fact that the 17-year-old had Protestant, Catholic and Jewish godparents. He wrote: ‘I know you have made it safely into Heaven whoever you met at the gate.

‘You are a treasured soul. With all my love always, Godfather Harry.’

Terry Flinders, the father of victim Patrick Flinders, last night revealed that his son had set his heart on travelling to Norway after a representative from BSES visited his school in Jersey.

Mr Flinders said: ‘He knew we couldn’t afford it so he set about trying to raise the money by doing car boot sales, washing cars and visiting local charities to appeal for funds.’ Patrick, 16, also swam 40 lengths at the local pool every day and dragged several tyres eight miles along the beach to ensure he could meet the physical challenges of the trip.

He said: ‘Lauren has been phoning me six times a day in hysterics trying to find out what the latest news is.’

Another victim, Scott Bennell-Smith, a pupil at Devonport High School for Boys in Plymouth also worked hard to raise funds. A former neighbour Francis Barett, 74, of St Mellion, Cornwall, said 17-year-old Scott was a ‘lovely lad, a really super boy’.

He added: ‘Scott worked really hard to raise money for his trip - he was forever washing people’s cars and looking for odd jobs.’

The parents of Andy Ruck,one of the team leaders of the expedition, are understood to have left their home in Brighton for Norway last night.

Mr Ruck has spent the past six years living in Aberdeen and Edinburgh. The 27-year-old is an accomplished mountaineer and an acclaimed travel writer.

One neighbour said: ‘This is a huge shock. Andy really had the spirit of the adventurer running through his veins.’

Outrage over Facebook tribute site for killer

By MAIL ON SUNDAY REPORTER

A Facebook site inviting tributes to the killer bear was last night taken down after it sparked a wave of outrage.

On the site - called ‘RIP Svalbard Polar Bear Who Got Shot Dead For Killing Horatio Chapple’ - one contributor wrote: ‘R.I.P snowey’, while another said the victims of the tragedy had only themselves to blame.

‘If you go camping with polar bears than you shouldn’t be shocked when they try to eat you,’ the posting said.

Giant: An official examines the dead bear

Outrage: The Facebook site set up for the beast

A different contributor said: ‘Another
instance of a wild animal being murdered because humans who had no
business being there invaded its territory and all it was doing was
trying to survive.

‘Very sad for the boy, but they shouldn’t have been there in the first place.’

It was not clear last night who had set up the site because they had taken steps to hide their identify from the Facebook page.

The site immediately provoked widespread outrage and people posted complaints there and on the Facebook tribute site for Horatio.

One person said of the tributes to the bear: ‘This is offensive and honestly disgusting. You need to consider how this is going to make friends and family of Horatio feel.

‘All anyone asks is for you to pay respects to the Chapple family and delete it.’

One visitor to the schoolboy’s own tribute page wrote: ‘Rest in peace. Some people are unbelievably cruel, thoughts are with your family.’

Another simply said ‘disgusting’ and another branded contributors to the bear’s page as ‘sick’.